The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church reclaimed 28 houses which were confiscated from the Church during the nationalization program of the Dergue regime.

Megabe Kahinat Haile Selassie Zemariam, director of department of clergy administration and chairman of houses and building joint committee, which is tasked with returning the churches’ confiscated properties, said the 28 confiscated houses were returned to the church from three sub cities of Addis Ababa on August 25, 2016: 18 houses from Lideta sub city, five from Yeka and another five from Kirkos sub cities.

He also noted that based on the assessment of the committee, 283 buildings of the church, which were seized by the Dergue regime, have been identified in different sub cities of Addis. Among the houses, 137 of them have legal land certification. Furthermore, 109 of the houses will be returned to the church till the end of this year.

The committee will continue its efforts to reclaim all the remaining buildings and houses to the church in the future, Megabe Kahinat Haile Selassie added.

Pope Francis on Sunday declared Mother Teresa of Calcutta a Saint, saying that she shone a light in the darkness of the many who no longer had tears to shed for their poverty and suffering.

In his homily during the canonization Mass in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope highlighted how the little nun who died in 1997 had taken in society’s most unwanted, and shamed world leaders for the "crimes of poverty they themselves created".

Exquisite mosaics depicting biblical scenes — one of Noah’s Ark, the other the parting of the Red Sea — were uncovered this summer by archaeologists excavating a fifth-century synagogue at Huqoq, an ancient Jewish village near the Sea of Galilee.

A consortium of universities, led by Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, uncovered the mosaics during its fifth annual excavation in June.

A new church was consecrated in Kyoto, Japan on the 15 of July 2016. Bishop Daniel Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church Diocese of Sydney and Affiliated Region presided over the ceremony and over 100 participants from Japan, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea were present for the occasion.

Pope Francis has married a young deaf couple in the chapel of his residence at the Vatican. Teodoro Pisciottani and Paulina Szczepanska, the daughter of a Vatican employee, were married on July 9 at the Vatican’s Domus Sanctae Marthae.

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is originally built in 339 AD, and after a fire rebuilt in the 6th century AD. Necessary restorations are taking place at the moment, by the Piacenti Spa Organization.